LYNN — A local Islamic group’s bid to buy city grave plots is just one sign of how Lynn’s Muslim population is growing and becoming more visible, said one of the group’s members.
“We’re becoming very big,” said North Shore Islamic Center member Abdel Almomani.
Center members have met over the past year with city officials to discuss purchasing plots in Pine Grove Cemetery for Muslim burials.
A Lynn resident since 1986, Almomani said the request to hold funerals following Islamic traditions is a natural step for a local Islamic community that now numbers 850 families.
“We look to be equal to the rest of the community,” he said.
At least two other Muslim organizations are expanding their presence in the city and heightening their visibility.
The Islamic Society of the North Shore is renovating the former Shoemaker veterans post at 35 Lynnfield St. for community functions and Friday afternoon worship services.
“Their plan is to utilize one floor for prayer,” said Samuel Vitali, the Society’s attorney.
The Muslim Athletic League is sponsoring its first basketball tournament and organizing a winter basketball league. Founder and English High School graduate Odsen Piton said the four-year-old league brings Muslim and non-Muslim youth and adults together to play football, basketball and soccer with more than 80 players involved in the basketball league alone.
Piton converted to Islam in 2003 as a college student and said the league is an example of how an organization involving Muslims benefits the entire community.
He said Middle East unrest is bringing people from that region to the United States in search of opportunity.
“People are coming to America — great nation that it is,” Piton said.
Almomani’s community ties run deep in Lynn. He owns Madina restaurant on Chestnut Street and formerly ran a Union Street business where he met Ward 4 City Councilor Richard Colucci.
“We got to be good friends,” Colucci said.
Iraqis and Moroccans have made Revere their home, and Mayor Daniel Rizzo said Muslim students represent the public school population’s fastest-growing group.
Rizzo attends local Islamic community functions and his office staff includes Mona Salem, a Muslim intern.
“She’s a terrific asset — I can’t tell you how many great families I’ve met,” Rizzo said.
Almomani credited Rizzo with predicting a Muslim resident may be mayor of Revere some day. Piton said that by crossing cultural and ethnic boundaries, the Muslim Athletic League does more than foster fun competition.
“We have a love of sports but we also provide peace and tolerance,” he said.
Talks between the Center and cemetery commissioners have been cordial, according to commission minutes, with discussions focusing in part on Islamic burial rituals that include positioning the body to face Mecca, the Saudi Arabian city deemed most holy by Muslims.
But the discussions have also left unresolved issues on the table: Almomani said the Center planned “300 to 400” burial plots in Pine Grove for its members, but commission minutes note that plots are only sold on an individual, first-come, first-served basis.
“We can’t accommodate that. We just don’t have the manpower available to put the crypts in,” city Cemetery Commissioner Jeff Stowell said.
Without Center members in attendance at the commission’s Jan. 8 meeting, commissioners voted to table the burial plot discussion until next month. Almomani said Center members are waiting for a commission invitation to the February meeting.
“How will I be present if no one lets me know?” he asked.
Thor Jourgensen can be reached at [email protected].
